Here’s What You Missed While You Were Multitasking

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Fast Life #2 (NYC 2006) (Photo credit: Zohar Manor-Abel)

 

That’s one of my favorite movie quotes of all time!  Recognize it? If not — it’s from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  Of course, Ferris (Matthew Broderick) was talking about skipping school and canoodling with his girlfriend.  But the high school delinquent does have a point.

Just yesterday I decided that my 10-minute walk to the subway would be better spent looking around — instead of fixated on my iPhone.  And just like that — there were no emails read, texts sent, songs listened to or lists made.  It was just me, my sneakers and New York City.

Here’s some of the stuff I noticed:

1. Third Avenue was repaved.  When did that happen? I’ve been tripping over kicked up pieces of asphalt all summer.  But I never noticed the brand new layer until now.
2. There are gorgeous yellow flowers in Stuyvesant Park.  Who knew?
3. There’s a woman who walks her pet pig (yep, pig) in my neighborhood.  Ha! Who has a pig in NYC? He was little, fuzzy and black.  Never saw him before.

OK so none of these things were off-the-charts spectacular, except maybe the pig, but they could have been! Imagine how many celebrity sightings or old friends you may have missed because you’ve been so distracted by multitasking.  Think about all the cute dogs or random acts of kindness you’ll never see because you’re just to busy doing other things.  It’s a shame, isn’t it?  Because it’s those little things that put a smile on our faces and keep us going.

So I challenge you — to put down your phone or whatever other distraction you have and just enjoy your surroundings.  It’s hard to do but the benefits are tremendous.